McCain helped push through the historic deregulation in 1999 that removed depression-era rules, making it legal for AIG and Lehman Brothers to accumulate massive debt and bad loans. The bill was sponsored by Phil Gramm, McCain's main economic advisor. This month both of those financial institutions crashed and the bailout will go into the 100 billions.

Will the USA vote for the people who have directly caused the current economic crisis?

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[In 1999] McCain had joined with other Republicans to push through landmark legislation sponsored by then-Sen. Phil Gramm (Tex.), who is now an economic adviser to his campaign. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act aimed to make the country's financial institutions competitive by removing the Depression-era walls between banking, investment and insurance companies.

That bill allowed AIG to participate in the gold rush of a rapidly expanding global banking and investment market. But the legislation also helped pave the way for companies such as AIG and Lehman Brothers to become behemoths laden with bad loans and investments.